Sunday, September 09, 2007

Sunday School Has More Impact On Me?

Today we started Sunday School at church. I am teaching the Junior High group. They are a great group of kids. Today's topic was "Women of Courage". We read the first chapter of Exodus. This is the story where they new king of Egypt does not remember Joesph and is intimidated with all the Hebrews in Egypt. He has ordered all the Hebrew baby boys to be killed. Shiphrah and Puah are the Hebrew midwifes and they fear God and do not kill the babies. When the king asks why there are still Hebrew baby boys they say that the Hebrew women are strong and vigourous and give birth before they get there. The story goes on to tell about a couple who gives birth to a baby boy and keep him hidden for three months. Then the mother puts him in a basket and sends him down the river. His sister keeps watch. Then the baby(Moses) is found by the Pharaoh's daughter and she adopts him. Moses' sister askes the pharoah's daughter if she wants her to find a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby. She says yes, and Moses' birth mother nurses him and then gives him to the pharohs daughter.

In the lesson plan they give questions to ask the kids. The first one was about how Shiphrah and Puah felt each time they saved a baby. I thought about the people in China who find the abandoned babies and take them to the orphange. I wonder how they feel?

The second question was: "I wonder how it feels to know your baby is in great danger?" This question really got to me. I think about my daughter all the time. I think about her birth mother leaving her somewhere and hoping that she would be found and taken care of. I think about our daughter being in a orphange and I hope she is ok. I hope people are being nice to her and taking good care of her. There is nothing I can do though. So I pray. I pray for her birth mother, that she will feel a sense of peace that her baby is ok. I pray for the caretakers and that they are taking good care of our daughter. Most of all I pray for our daughter and that she is ok. I pray she some how knows we are coming soon. I also pray for us to not worry so much and to be comforted that God is in control and soon we will be a family.

The third question was "I wonder what Pharaoh thought when he found out his daughter was adopting a Hebrew child". This one also resonated with me and our adoption. So many people have asked us why we are adopting from China and not from America. They ask why we don't adopt a baby that is more like us. We even have family members that have had a hard time accepting that our daughter will not look like us. David and I don't care though. I imagine the Pharaoh's daughter was the same. She did not care, she saw a baby that needed to be cared for and she took him in. We know our daughter needs us and that is all that matters. I keep saying that at least she will have dark hair like me.

It was so interesting to me how much I was impacted by the lesson today. We talked about having courage and finding courage in scripture and strenght in God. We talked about different scriptures that can give you strenght. My two favorites are Matthew 14:28 and Matthew 6:25. The kids liked these too. I love the Matthew verse about not worring about tomarrow and that God takes care of the grass in the field, don't you think He will take care of you?

Until next time......

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear Rachel,

Your experience with the Bible study on the women around the baby Moses was wonderfully moving. I copied it to WORD to make it easy to print out. We'll send one to Grandma. Have you sent this to Grandpa? We'd be happy to do that. The other night Mom was describing it to him.

I hope you got the notice that we have blocked Wisconsin time in June, and we're praying all well go well to welcome Elizabeth then!

Mom told me about the letter from Karen Hamel, but she's out running errands now, and I just took a break from lawn mowing.

Love,
Dad